It's getting harder and harder to find products that are truly "made in America", although the claims abound. And although there are some great success stories out there which proudly and legitimately trumpet their American origins, there are others who have not been so forthcoming. In some cases, the claims are outright lies; in other cases, they have only been telling part of the truth.

Columbus, Ohio-based Made in USA Brand, LLC, which markets a made-in-the-USA seal to other businesses, has agreed to settle a Federal Trade Commission charge that it allowed other companies to use the seal without determining whether the products were indeed manufactured in the United States. Furthermore, the company allegedly claimed that it verified such claims when it did not.

This case and others have helped shine a light on this practice, but also have generated a plethora of other questions, such as, "what does 'Made in the USA'" really mean? Now, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to know that if you manufacture a coffee maker in, say, Tupelo, you are without a doubt putting Mississippians to work. But what if the components used to make that coffee maker come from China? And what if only a few parts come from Malaysia, but the rest come from American companies? Can it still be said to be Made in the USA? And how do you go further back in the chain to find out where those companies got their raw materials?

The FTC's standard appears to be pretty vague on the issue. "Although there is no single 'bright line' to establish when a product is or is not 'all or virtually all' made in the United States, there are a number of factors that the Commission will look to in making this determination," notes the FTC policy. The fact is that only automobiles, textiles, wool and fur products are explicitly required by law to disclose how much of their content comes from the United States. And a 1933 law called the "Buy American Act" requires that a product must contain at least 50 percent of U.S.-origin parts for it to be considered "Made in the USA" for federal government procurement.

The FTC standard says that a product must contain a "negligible" portion of foreign-made goods. It also goes on to say that the product's final assembly must be in the United States.

So how do you know if something is really "Made in the USA"? The only way to be 100 percent certain is to know from where the product's raw materials came, and where it was manufactured. To know that information requires some trust. As an example, if you go to the local flea market and buy a homemade broom from a local vendor, you will likely pay more than for a simple broom from a local discount store. But it's likely that the broom was made using locally-grown straw and hand-hewn wood from local forests, so you can feel confident. For me, my brother Tom, who welds horseshoes into whimsical frogs and bookends in his Tennessee barn, is creating a product that's made in the USA; the origin of the steel in the horseshoes is not pertinent. Beyond local crafts, however, it gets more complicated.

It could be that we are not asking the right questions. For many, buying American means that the dollars we spend are going into the pockets of people in our community, or at least in our nation. Once spent, they stay here and turn over in local communities, helping support American families. For others, buying American means promoting an America which can stand on her own, free of the potential of being squeezed economically by other nations which don't have our best interests at heart. Any discussions of the issue must consider that we do now reside in a "global village" of sorts. That's only likely to increase as our world becomes more complex.